11 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Pakistani government’s decision to allow intelligence services to “trace and intercept” messages and phone calls “in the interest of national security” was appealed Thursday before a court in Lahore province due to the risk of invading the privacy of citizens of the Central Asian country.
The suit was filed in the Lahore High Court by a Pakistani man identified as Mashkur Husain, who argued that all citizens have the right to be protected by the law, as stated in the Constitution, the newspaper ‘Dawn’ reported.
It has also demanded that the court reject the notification as unconstitutional and asked the central government to frame rules for the implementation of the powers under the Telecom Act, 1996, cited as the basis for the Islamabad decision.
The section of the Telecommunications Act used in this case allows the federal government to authorise the interception of calls or messages “in the interest of national security”, amid accusations against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of taking steps to limit freedom of expression.
Sharif in May approved a bill to amend the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act to include the creation of a Digital Rights Protection Authority, while he is installing a nationwide firewall on several service providers to block content, Pakistani broadcaster Geo TV reported.
The firewall would act as a filtering system to detect content that authorities consider dangerous to national security. Pakistan’s Telecommunications Authority has also proposed a new regulatory framework that would require YouTube, WhatsApp, X and Facebook to register locally.
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